Professor Tatia Lee Awarded
RGC Strategic Topics Grant (2026/27)

Congratulations to Professor Tatia Lee, Chair Professor of Psychological Science and Clinical Psychology and May Endowed Professor in Neuropsychology, on receiving funding under the Research Grants Council’s Strategic Topics Grant (STG) Scheme for 2026/27

Project Title: An Integrated AI Solution for Large-Scale Improvement of Emotional Health among Older Populations: Risk Assessment of Depression and Intervention for Ageing Needs, Challenges, and Empowerment System (RADIANCE)
Project Coordinator: Professor Tatia Lee
 
Abstract
Increased prevalence and incidence of depression among the rapidly ageing population in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area (GBA) is an increasingly challenging healthcare issue. Despite this pressing concern, there remains a critical lack of a large-scale digital solution to provide systematic, timely screening, monitoring, and contingent interventions for older adults at risk of depression. To address this imminent healthcare gap, we propose a multi-tiered, agentic, deep learning-based system that leverages multiple contemporary artificial intelligence approaches to process and learn from large-scale multimodal data. Building on our extensive research track record in late-life depression, our multidisciplinary team of scientists and practitioners from Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Beijing collaborated to propose the “Risk Assessment of Depression and Intervention for Ageing Needs, Challenges, and Empowerment System (RADIANCE)”. Our synergistic team, with a proven track record of collaboration, aims to develop a comprehensive AI solution that addresses critical gaps in current services for older adults’ emotional health and overcomes significant scalability and accessibility challenges in existing mental healthcare services. First, the AI system will perform population-wide screening, monitoring, and automatic referral to affiliated mental health professionals, significantly reducing the staffing and financial burdens placed on the healthcare system. Second, our system will be implemented on personal digital devices, thereby significantly reducing social barriers and stigma that discourage older adults from seeking help and substantially increasing access to mental health assistance. Third, in combination with our custom wearable devices, our system enables 24/7 continuous tracking of physiological, behavioural, and affective changes associated with depression. Fourth, personalised, digital agent-guided interventions will be delivered on our platform to protect older adults against developing depression. This will, in turn, help direct healthcare resources to those who have a genuine need for clinical assistance and, eventually, reduce the incidence and prevalence of geriatric depression in Hong Kong and the GBA. Our overarching goal is for RADIANCE to complement existing healthcare systems, enhancing scalability and accessibility to empower older people to take control of their emotional health. Our strong collaborations with community health and clinical translation platform providers (e.g., Virtus Medical Group in HK and the Chinese Mainland) and industry partners (e.g., Xiamen Amity Brain Health and A.I. Technology Co., Ltd. in the Chinese Mainland) provide platforms for rigorous research, validation, and translation of RADIANCE. Demonstrating RADIANCE’s success will unlock emerging opportunities in cross-border healthcare innovation, AI-enhanced mental health services, and large-scale preventive care strategies tailored to the rapidly ageing population across the GBA.

About the RGC Strategic Topic Grant:
https://www.ugc.edu.hk/eng/rgc/funding_opport/stg/index.html

Faculty News:
https://web.socsc.hku.hk/school_news/professor-tatia-lee-awarded-rgc-strategic-topics-grant/

HKU press release:
https://www.hku.hk/press/press-releases/detail/29280.html